


What We Make

by Azar



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-29
Updated: 2011-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too many of Sarah's choices have been made for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Make

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the het ficathon a couple of years ago for lifewithlogan. She requested any pairing, with the prompt, "paradox". Once again, thanks soooo much to Medie for the last-minute beta!

When Sarah first met Kyle Reese, she thought he was insane. The vision he painted for her of a future of endless war, man battling machine in a war of attrition to determine the fate of the human race – with herself cast in the role of the Virgin Mary to some cyberpunk Messiah – was too incredible, too horrific to be true. Anyone in their right mind would have had the same reaction; she's been on the receiving end of it often enough to know.

Then he saved her life. He kept saving it until finally, he died for her, leaving nothing of himself behind except the son he'd prophesied. Her son: the living, breathing, walking, talking definition of a predestination paradox. The son she will have to mold into a man who could send his father to his death to ensure his own conception: to strip away all the compassion and trust that she sees and loves in him and replace it with a ruthless military commander who will sacrifice for the greater good without hesitation.

There are times, as much as she loved Kyle and as much as she loves John, that she hates them both for it. For locking her into a life without the choices most people take for granted and forcing her to sacrifice her son's soul for his survival.

Derek Reese is a much harder man than his brother ever was, but then she's no longer the young, innocent waitress who couldn't comprehend that the fate of humanity rested in her womb. She's lived with that knowledge for half her life now: too long to see "chosen" as anything but another word for cursed.

There's no grand, tragic destiny that binds them, or at least if there is she doesn't ever want to know. She takes her choices where she can these days: Derek may believe that she muffles her cries when he makes her come so that John won't feel she's betraying his father, but there's a much deeper, darker reason she doesn't want him to know. If John knew the solace she takes from Derek, he might have sent him here for just this purpose and that's a thought she can't bear.

Derek's no great love of her life – she's not even sure she loves him at all – but he is her choice. In a life rich in love but poor in choices, that almost means more.

(She once chose Charley for the same reason, but only succeeded in drawing him into her world despite her best efforts to keep him safe. Andy Good's fate was as entwined with hers before they ever met as Kyle's, though him too she tried to save from it. She's tired of losing the men she loves to this twisted destiny.)

Derek slides away now, collapsing to the bed beside her, their bodies slick with each other's sweat. His breath comes heavy and she can still hear her own heart pounding in her ears: pounding with adrenaline and the defiant rhythm of being alive two years after she was meant to be dead. He looks at her then with an unreadable intensity and she wonders if he cares that she's using him; she can't pretend he doesn't know.

"Why do you do it?"

"Why do I do what?"

"Try to take down Skynet. I know my reasons; what are yours?"

Sarah shifts uncomfortably, his frank, searching gaze making her feel more naked than she did only a moment ago while they were making love. "What makes you assume my reasons are any different than yours?"

His answer is disturbingly astute: "Maybe because if we succeed, your son might cease to exist."

Sarah sucks in a shocked breath. "How did you—?"

Derek scoffs. "Please. I knew Kyle his whole life. You'd have had to try a lot harder than that to keep me from seeing him in John."

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Arrogant words that she's long since given up applying to herself because deep in her heart she knows she can't undo what is to come. John binds it together and them to it by his very existence. But for his sake, she still has to try.

"He asked me," she answers simply.

They both know that before John wakes, she will banish Derek from her bed back to the couch. That in the daylight, she will acknowledge him only as a tie to the past and the future that none of them can forget. For now, she only rolls over, burying her face in the pillow and praying for the dubious refuge of sleep.

Sarah still sees Kyle in her dreams from time to time. Sometimes he admonishes her, as he did when he came to her at Pescadero: reminds her of her duty to humanity to keep John safe. Other times, she feels him watching her: watching her with their son, watching her with the machine, watching her with his brother.

She never feels the need to ask his forgiveness. Kyle knew what he asked of her, what John asked of them both. Sometimes she thinks if he had lived, he might have made the same choice.

 


End file.
